Parks On The Air

Can You POTA on 160 Meters? Lets Find Out!

Several months ago, someone on the Parks On The Air POTA Facebook page posed the question “Has anyone made a POTA activation on 160 Meters?” To be honest, I really haven’t given 160 Meters much thought, let alone for a POTA activation. So this got the wheels of thought churning in my head.

160 Meters is a unique band that covers the frequencies of 1800 – 2000 kHz. Its often referred to as the Top Band, not sure why, but it is. The biggest problem for me is the size of the antennas required. A classic Dipole antenna for 160 meters is approximately 246 feet. A full sized vertical is approximately 123 Feet. For most hams this is hardly practical – let alone for a POTA Activation.

Since my main POTA setup is with a 40 ft. Spiderbeam mast and a 35 foot wire hung from the top, I figured that would be my starting point. So obviously I would have to come up with some sort of shortened vertical antenna for 160 Meters. This made sense to me as I have had success building other shortened vertical antennas for my POTA activations.

My POTA station has an LDG Autotuner and all it needs is to have some sort of ground to work against, and a wire at least 1/4 wavelength long. What I do for POTA on 80 meters is have a coil that adds enough inductance to my 35 foot wire so that the autotuner “thinks” its tuning into a long enough wire. This works well for me, so I thought I would do the same for 160 Meters.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

A POTA activation of North Bass Island By KE8ONI and WB8ERJ

Sometime in March of 2022, my friend, Kevin, KE8ONI, posted on the POTA Facebook page asking if anyone was interested in putting together a POTA trip to North Bass Island in Lake Erie. I quickly jumped in and said YES! Kevin and I first met on Facebook’s Parks On The Air group. About a year prior to our North Bass Island adventure, we met up at Malabar Farm State Park, which is about 7 miles from my house. We hit it off right away – we both are just a couple of big kids that like to have fun.

About North Bass Island

North Bass Island is located in Lake Erie about 2 miles from the Canadian border, and about 18 miles from the Ohio mainland. It is of particular interest to us POTA activators because its a bit difficult to get to. Unlike the more popular islands in Lake Erie, is that the only way to get there is either by a chartered air service, private plane, or private boat. Because there is no regular air or ferry service, activating North Bass Island is more difficult than most other parks. Fortunately, Kevin’s brother-in-law and sister own a boat.

North Bass Island is mostly undeveloped and historically been used as a vineyard. There are roughly two dozen residents on the island. Most of the islands 688 acres is part of the North Bass Island State Park.

The Plan…

Since Kevin’s family was vacationing for a week in August, I reserved a campsite at East Harbor State Park for three nights. One of the reasons was because the weather on Lake Erie is unpredictable. We figured if we gave ourselves a three day window, we should be able to get our POTA activations in. This also allowed me to activate East Harbor State Park during those three days as well – not to mention some quality beach time with my daughter and her kids.

Additionally Kevin reached out to N8NI, who was going to be on Pelee Island operating POTA, which is only 7 miles from North Bass Island. We were able to work Nathan on 2 meters so we got the Park to Park!

Pages: 1 2 3 4

My First POTA Activation With The QRP-Labs QCX-mini Transceiver

I have been doing POTA activations for a few years now. its great fun and encourages us amateur radio operators to develop off-grid communications systems. If you haven’t heard of POTA, its a somewhat new thing in the world of ham radio. The best thing you can do is go to their website to get the whole scoop. Its parksontheair.com.

So in planning a vacation with my daughter, I wanted to do POTA activations however there wasn’t going to be any room for my regular POTA gear. This “required” me to look into a new rig. Lo and behold, i stumbled on to QRP-Labs’ QCX-mini transceiver. Man is it tiny! It measures 3 3/4″ x 2 1/2′ x 1 3/4″. Don’t let the size fool you, this thing packed with all kinds of features!

The QCX-Mini Features

Easy to build, two-board design, (if you are an experienced builder) board with main circuit and connectors, display panel board with LCD; all-controls board-mounted on a press-out sub-board. No wiring, all controls and connectors are board-mounted.
Professional quality double-sided, through-hole plated, silk-screen printed PCBs
Choice of single band, 80, 60, 40, 30, 20 or 17m
Approximately 3-5W CW output (depending on supply voltage)
7-14V recommended supply voltage
Class E power amplifier, transistors run cool…
7-element Low Pass Filter ensures regulatory compliance
CW envelope shaping to remove key clicks
High performance receiver with at least 50dB of unwanted sideband cancellation
200Hz CW filter with no ringing
Si5351A Synthesized VFO with rotary encoder tuning
16 x 2 yellow/green LCD screen
Iambic keyer or straight key option included in the firmware
Simple Digital Signal Processing assisted CW decoder, displayed real-time on-screen
On-screen S-meter
On-screen real time clock (not battery backed up)
Full or semi QSK operation using fast solid-state transmit/receive switching
Frequency presets, VFO A/B Split operation, RIT, configurable CW Offset
Configurable sidetone frequency and volume
Connectors: 2.1mm power barrel connector, 3.5mm keyer jack, 3.5mm stereo earphone jack, 3.5mm stereo jack for PTT, 3.5mm stereo jack for CAT control, BNC RF output
Built-in test signal generator and alignment tools to complete simple set-up adjustments
Built-in test equipment: voltmeter, RF power meter, frequency counter, signal generator
Beacon mode, supporting automatic CW, FSKCW or WSPR operation
GPS interface for reference frequency calibration and time-keeping (for WSPR beacon)
CAT control interface
Optional 50W PA kit
Optional aluminium extruded cut/drilled/laser-etched black anodized enclosure

Pages: 1 2 3 4